The present invention relates to hair curlers and related appliances, particularly electric hair curlers and appliances of the hand-held type.
Electric hair curlers and appliances of the hand-held type are generally known, but have several disadvantages. For example, in many conventional hair curlers and appliances, hair is wound around a cylindrical hair-winding portion or attachment which has bristles disposed along its length. These bristles are quite hard and lack any significant flexibility. Thus, hair wound on the portion or attachment becomes entangled in these bristles and is very difficult to disentangle. This disadvantage displays itself in several ways. For example, a bundle of hair may be wound around the hair-winding portion or attachment in such a way that the bristles protrude beyond the wound hair and become entangled in another bundle of hair located beneath the first bundle. This kind of entanglement is often associated with entanglement of the wound hair with the bristles.
The "cushion brush" type of hair curler or appliance, known in the art, attempts to overcome these disadvantages by mounting its hard bristles on a flexible rubber bristle-mounting platform and restricting the movement of the bristles by enveloping the bristle-mounting platform with a harder layer through which the bristles project. However, it suffers from the disadvantage of hair binding by the rubber bristle-mounting platform which reduces the movement of the bristles so much that entanglement occurs. Further, assembly of the "cushion brush" hair curler or appliance is complicated.